I snapped a photo of our refrigerator last week because people often ask what I keep in my fridge. When you consider much of my day is about coaching people on their dietary needs based upon their Nutrition Response Testing results, it makes sense that people are curious. Growing up I never thought I’d be the one taking photos of my food, because I was the one making fun of the grown-ups taking photos of food at every gathering And yet, here I am.
Sometimes it looks like our fridge is EMPTY. The bulk of our diet consists of meat, fruits, and veggies, so unless there are leftovers or pre-prepped food for meals, that’s what you will see. We do love our leftovers for lunches or a quick warm up for dinner the next night. My husband and I are both self-employed, so we are able to easily warm food for lunch. In fact, we both have one of these gadgets and it’s a life saver! There is nothing like the smell of homemade food warming while at work.
We recently remodeled our kitchen and went from having a REALLY small pantry (if you can even call it that) and VERY little storage to having some room (that we managed to fill in a hot second) in our kitchen. I’ve never been one to keep much on hand outside of bulk gluten free grains and baking supplies, though the uncertainty of the pandemic changed that. We’ve now joined the ranks of those who built up their pantries with extra food in case we needed it. Full disclosure: this does include about 27 bags of chips from Aldi for the teenagers. We have TWO of these humans in our household and between Thrive Market, Aldi, Trader Joe’s, and Costco, we manage to keep them fed.
Sourcing Our Food
We get our eggs from Nature’s Pantry Farm, order our beef in bulk from Pasture Adickes, a friend raises our heritage pork, and we get bulk whole organic chickens from another farm that uses our office as a drop site. My Healthy Beginning is always stocked with wild caught salmon direct from Bristol Bay, Alaska, and both Pasture Adickes and Nature’s Pantry Farm keep the freezer stocked with items such as ground beef patties, beef sticks, braunschweiger, summer sausage, and more, so I can grab something if I need it without having to go far. We now have two standing freezers in our basement and they are always full, whether it be meat, meals we have made, frozen veggies, or extra nuts/seeds/flours.
What’s in My Fridge Right Now?
Let’s talk about that picture, though … what exactly is in my fridge right now. During the winter we shop Azure Standard, Costco, and Imperfect Produce for our organic produce and they keep us well stocked.
Top shelf —> a bowl of leftover roasted broccoli and cauliflower, Good Foods dairy free plant based queso (it’s a crowd favorite over here), left over gluten free buckwheat spaghetti noodles, , Grillo’s pickles, Good Foods tzaziki sauce (new — can’t wait to try!), and leftover quinoa.
Middle shelf —> berries, eggs, applesauce, roasted butternut squash, grapes, olives, Bubbies pickles, sunflower seed butter, goat cheddar cheese (in the reusable bag), and guac.
Though I thrive to have an organized fridge, see paragraph #3 where I mention having TWO teenagers in my house. It’ll be awhile before I can shine in that department.
Bottom shelf —> more eggs, spinach, mushrooms, broccoli, celery, and a host of mystery foods that include: fresh lemon cut in a bowl (Annie makes her own lemonade a lot), tuna salad, sliced onion in a bowl (with a cover for the win!), soft goat cheese in a bowl, another bowl of a couple goat and sheep cheese varieties from an evening with friends, and an avocado half waiting for home.
The bottom drawers are typically filled with a variety of goat and sheep cheeses, dairy free cheese, and whatever deli meat we are eating that week on the left. On the right is the fruit drawer: apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemon/lime, and fresh ginger, though this week the drawers were on overflow from our Imperfect Produce order.
On the door —> Butter! Always a variety here of Organic Valley, Trader Joe’s, Hope, or Kerrygold. Or if I’ve got a really great baked good on hand, I LOVE a hand-rolled butter.
Lard, full-fat coconut milk, probiotic capsules for making coconut milk yogurt, coconut kefir water, liquid stevia.
Almond butter, Nutzo, cashew butter, sunflower seed butter, flax meal, hemp seeds.
Sauerkraut, almond milk, mayo.
Coconut aminos, fish sauce, ketchup, yellow and ground mustard.
Ningxia Red, hot sauce, salsa.
Nothing fancy, just whole real food.
How It All Comes Together
Our girls are home and make their own lunches daily and follow the balanced macros (mostly, again, teenagers). Our middle packs our youngest’s lunch each day, and I fast until the lunch hour, so often have a shake or some kind of leftover from dinner the night before. This makes grocery shopping easy and meal planning even easier when all I have to think about are dinners and having enough of the basics for breakfast and lunch.
Once every few weeks we’ll pick up a loaf of millet bread for the girls to use in their lunches. Two slices per day is their limit for bread — not because we have to ration it, but because nobody needs more starch than that. There are weeks when we won’t even have bread in the house, so they have learned this well from an early age. For example, if Annie wants a “one-eyed sailor” for breakfast, she’ll then use the other one to make a half sunbutter/jam sandwich to go with her lunch of turkey or ham, veggies, fruit, and maybe some avocado oil potato chips. They know they can either have gluten or grain free crackers OR bread with their lunches, but not both.
Questions about what you should have in your fridge? Schedule a discovery call today to find out!
